For anyone tired out by the unrelenting tackiness of the neon-lit Times Square, there’s an alternative, this one in basic black. The Night Hotel, a new addition on West 45th between Sixth and Seventh, is, adjusting for the neighborhood, the model of fashionable composure, from the monochrome checks of the lobby floor to the black-and-white Gothic chic of the perversely cozy bedrooms.
And this being Times Square, of course, it’s ever so slightly over the top. This isn’t monochrome-as-minimalism, in a downtown style, but more a black velvet fantasy, a romantic evocation of a darker, more glamorous Gotham.
It’s a smallish (called a boutique) hotel, less than a hundred rooms, and like most New York hotel rooms, they’re not overly large. They are, however, well-appointed, with plasma TVs, iPod stereo systems, and generous creature comforts, including 400-thread-count Frette sheets and Molton Brown bath products, which probably matter more to the Night’s amorous clientele than, say, full-sized work desks — though the latter, one imagines, might find themselves drafted into improvised service too.
There's a restaurant, called Nightlife (what else?) — though, to be fair, this being Manhattan, there’s a lot more nightlife to be had outside the hotel’s walls.
This is a section of the side of The Throgs Neck Bridge in Whitestone, N.Y. This is where our gasoline taxes are supposed to go: to the maintenance of our bridges and roads. So what's going on with the Throgs Neck Bridge?
I caught this sky one afternoon before it rained. If I had the time I would have gotten rid of the electric lines (using a photoshop software) but then the posts and the street lights would still be there. So ignore them and just marvel at the sky over Queens, NYC.
Building engineer performing maintenance atop gargoyle on the Chrysler Building, July 30, 2006.
Red Umbrella in Madison Square Park
Via New York Times:
What goes (she gives them away): Graham Greene, Sedaris, Don DeLillo, the collected works of Poe, Aldous Huxley, Studs Terkel, “A Million Little ...,” all the books on how to be an angry left-wing feminist, anything by the Beats, everything by Tolstoy except “Anna Karenina,” out with Atwood and Capote, Hubert Selby Jr., Mailer and a bunch of other stuff.
WHAT I keep: Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” (given to me in seventh grade; I will never give it away); “Swann’s Way” (always almost finished, heavily underlined; I’ll get through it); Didion’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” (my Mom gave it to me when I turned 11); Robert Coover’s “Briar Rose” (when I finished it, I wanted to marry him); Donald Barthelme’s “60 Stories” (if I am on a date with someone and he says he does not like Barthelme, I walk out).
While I tell you the rest of the article is a must read, here's Ms. Frankfurt's conclusion...
When you are a native New Yorker, you bring the city with you wherever you go; like the books I lug around, the pages are part of my skin. New York is my nationality. Like a great line, written by an enduring author, it simply sinks in.
So my question is now what are the books you would keep and which ones would you get rid of?
paul szynol's photostream
Last year [2005], that number was 3.7 shots fired per officer in 109 incidents. They are down from 4.6 in 2000 and 5.0 in 1995.What hasn't been mentioned is something the New York Times talked about today: “contagious shooting” — gunfire that spreads among officers who believe that they, or their colleagues, are facing a threat. It spreads like germs, like laughter, or fear. An officer fires, so his colleagues do, too.
